Being Super

(Click on Batman's nose to see larger version)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Gas Guzzlers to Die For.

Batman stag party trivia questions and answers:
1. What was Robin's real name? (A: Dick Grayson)
2. What was the most prominent feature of the 1960s TV Batman costume? (A: Adam West's package.)
3. What was Bruce Wayne's middle name? (A: I don't know for sure but it was probably Peter.)

Everyone knows that Dick Grayson was a bit of a dim bulb, otherwise how could Bruce Wayne have ever talked him into going out in public dressed like that? Especially to confront thugs? So this cartoon merely illustrates one of the many problems Batman likely had with Robin in the early days.

The second cartoon of this weekend's 3-pack is a mystery. I don't know what it means, I just thought it was funny having a gingerbread man asking for a job at a service station. It is based on a true story.

Lastly, we have a fun cartoon about aliens eating astronauts. I like to draw alien creatures, I suspect that most cartoonists do, so I like writing cartoons about them. Here is a link to my favorite alien drawing I've ever done, which I used to advertise my Bizarro Trading Cards.

By the way, you can help Batman fight crime by buying Bizarro Trading Cards. A portion of each purchase goes toward supplies needed to draw Batman fighting crime.

Tiny Garage

Just for fun.






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Conspiracies

Bizarro is brought to you today by Conspiracy Theories.

This cartoon got some angry letters from readers who believe that 9/11 was an inside job and felt I was making fun of them. Most of the letters were polite and chided me for being uniformed about the various holes in the "official" story and included links to prove their case. I've seen most of these sites before but viewed them again so I could be totally, totally informed.

I don't mean to insult any of you who believe this, but here is my position, for what it's worth. I have no doubt that Cheney and Bush (word order intentional) would have done such a thing if they could. But considering their utter failure at everything else they touched, I find it inconceivable that they could have pulled off a mission so huge and complex without everything going wrong. First, a lot of people would have had to be in the loop and history tells us that people are not good at keeping secrets; someone would have come forward by now with irrefutable evidence, not just conjecture. Second, you can find holes in every story, true or not. The human brain is irresistibly drawn to conspiracy theories, it's part of our evolutionary nature to study events, construct a story and draw conclusions. Different people come to different conclusions, but they can't all be true. As it turns out, the simplest explanation is usually correct. Bin Laden is the simplest explanation here, by far.

The Bush administration was clearly guilty of ignoring repeated warnings about the attack beforehand and using it as a tool to frighten the nation into attacking a country that had nothing to do with it. And we all know how well that worked out for the U.S. They used 9/11 in the most unscrupulous way imaginable to get what they had been wanting for years and that alone is enough to put them in jail forever. But I don't think they orchestrated it. I think it was Bin Laden. Just my opinion, we all have one.

As I said, most of the letters were polite but here is one that falls into some other category. I found it amusing, I hope you do, too. It appears here in its entirety, except for the signature.

THIS PAST WEEK ?NOT SO FUNNY BUT ALSO A LIE : "BUSH DIDN'T
DO 911 ... "MEANING ? HE DID , OR HE DID NOT ?AND YOU KNOW THE
DIFFERENCE >? BUSH DID NINE ELEVEN AND TWELVE AND 2 WARS ? I
REALLY LIKE THE BIZARRO COMIC , BUT I DID NOT GET THIS ONE ... SHAME ON YOU AND OUR GOVERNMENT FROM 2001 TO 2008 , AND THE LITTLE BOYS STILL COVERING IT UP ... I AM 76 YRS OLD AND DO NOT LIKE JOKES LIKE THAT . THIS /THAT WAS A" FALSE FLAG ATTACK ". MAY THE TALIBAN KICK PETRAEUS AS AND THEN YOURS .. I KNOW HEARST IS A RAG PAPER : I AM JUST ABOUT TO WRITE TO SCARPETTA,(PATRICIA CORNWELL ) PAGE 158 CHAPTER
10 ... BERGER LOOKS OUT HER WINDOW AND SEES FLIGHT 11 CRASH INTO WTC.
THEN THE SECOND PLANE HIT ... NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
FN PLANE CRASHED INTO ANY BUILDING ... CHECK OUT THE STATISTICS AT TRANSPORTATION DEPT (KNOWN HAS RITA ) DEPARTURES ,, FLIGHTS 11,175,77,
93 ? FLEW ON 9/10 , AND WERE PENCILLED IN HAS FLYING ON 9/11/2001
(MISSING THE TAIL NUMBERS AND DEPARTURE TIME ...

I responded to the other emails, but not this one. I don't actually speak this man's language and I couldn't be certain he has a translator available.

ON A DIFFERENT TOPIC:
Hey, kids. A reader just told me that somebody posted some random clips from my Baloney Show on Funny or Die. Please go to that site and vote "funny." I'm too young to die.

Thanks!

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/d0d4a60502/the-bizarro-baloney-show-by-dan-piraro

A, like, awesome cartoon

Bizarro is, like, brought to you or whatever by, like, the Awesome Key.

Someone bought a color poster of this cartoon off of my Cafe Press site and I was reminded of how much I like it. Several times each week I am alarmed at how many adults, usually women, talk like goofy teenagers. I think women do it more because they can get away with "cute," childlike behavior in the workplace (because there are men who find it endearing) much longer than men can.

Anyway, I like this old cartoon and I can't stand people who talk in that clipped, post-Valley-Girl accent and fear that one day there will be 50-year-old judges who talk like that.

And now an advert: you get lots of my images on, like, a gazillion different products or whatever at Cafe Press here. It's not like I make any money from it, but I thought you might think it was awesome.

Dog God Monkey Gay

Bizarro is brought to you today by Bad Parents.

Parents aren't supposed to have favorites, but of these three cartoons, I like the personal masseuse one best. I thought of this while walking through Times Square recently when an organ grinder's monkey jumped on my back and began searching my pockets for valuables. He eventually found my wallet and opened it, but after finding nothing more valuable in it than an old bus pass, he threw it down and moved on to the next passerby. This kind of scenario is one reason I don't carry valuables. The other is that I don't have any.

My next offering is about a plant who is tired of watching "Golden Girls" reruns. For my readers who are either not acquainted with trends in the gay community or who think that homosexuality is an abomination unto the lord and don't associate with them, "Golden Girls" is an immensely popular series among American gays. Maybe elsewhere, too. Something about Bea Arthur sends them into squeals of joy. I like Bea Arthur too, although I strongly suspect I am not gay.

Finally, we have the atheist Boston Terrier. I got a lot of mail about this one, but none was from angry theists, as I suspected I might. Instead, it was all from readers who couldn't figure out what it meant. (Perhaps another reason Bizarro did poorly on a comics poll in Kansas City and subsequently canceled? Missouri is the "Show Me State" after all.) Most of them were trying to make "Boston Terrier" spell something backwards when in fact, I was just going for "dog". I chose a BT randomly, because I like to draw them. My bad, should have had the mutt on the left deliver the line.

Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday. You are always on my mind.

3-fer Saturday

Bizarro is brought to you today by Religious Interpretation.

Today's extra special 3-fer is a jam packed full of various things that are sure to amuse somebody somewhere for some reason for at least a few seconds. I hope you're one of them.

The first comic includes a reference to Tarzan's Hollywood sidekick, a chimp named Cheeta. Cheeta's shirt is a satire of the popular middle-American saying, "WWJD?" which stands for "what would jesus do?" Popular with Christian teens, I suppose it was invented as a way to keep reminding teenagers that a vengeful god is watching them and they'd better not try to get away with anything. I didn't see this cartoon as a slap at religion but one reader did, telling me I owed him an apology and that my cartoon likely angered Jesus, which he insinuated was not a good thing and something I should be afraid of. I'm not inclined to believe that if some kind of god does exist, it would be so petty and insecure as to be insulted this easily.

Cartoon #2 is a simple illustration of a different meaning for the common claim that something or someone is huge in Japan. Nothing much to say here except that googling images of sumo wrestlers for reference reminded me of how utterly weird humans are.

Our final cartoon today is a Sunday panel and employs one of my favorite cartoon gimmicks – leading the reader to think one thing at first glance only to reveal after reading the caption that the picture is not what it seems. Here, most people's first assumption is that the horse is running when in fact, he is hovering in place. I particularly like the way the drawing came out on this one. The looks on both horses' faces adds to the joke and the cowboy on the hover-horse looks appropriately goofy. I also love doing this kind of desert background. Be sure to click on the image for a larger view.

Enjoy your weekend. That's an order.

AMAZING Animation

Here's something sent to me by Heather M. from Indianapolis. It's a truly amazing animation by an amazing artist and crew. Keep in mind this is not done with computers, all of it is stop-motion animation and actual paint. I can only imagine how long this took to produce. The concept and storyboards alone would take months.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Devlish Pundit

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Face of Fear.

Although I admit that I think Glenn Beck is a dangerous lunatic, I didn't see this cartoon as particularly partisan. Mostly, it is just meant to describe Beck as someone who believes in The Devil and would debate him if he could. Both of which I'd guess are true. And most readers did not take offense or I would have gotten more complaints. As it is, I only received one comment on this cartoon and I'm not sure it was even a complaint, per se. It follows, in its entirety, minus the signature.

"I like Bizarro in my daily newspaper. I like Glenn Beck better."

I assume this person thought this cartoon was vaguely offensive to Beck, but I'm not sure in what way. If you're a follower of Beck's and believe him to be a sensible person in control of his mental faculties, what would be offensive about this? I can't see it. Perhaps it is the fact that this cartoon is only actually humorous to those of us who see him as insane and fans of his find this notion offensive in and of itself. Which I suppose I can understand.

For readers who like both Bizarro and Beck, I hope I haven't lost you on this. I've given up on hoping that anything I say or do will ever contribute to sensible politics on planet Earth, I'm just resigned to trying to make people laugh, make a living and sleep indoors. The overwhelming majority of my cartoons are not political so there's still plenty to enjoy.

We're Zombies Now

Here's a bit of fun from my friend, dc roberts. I sent him the photo at left of CHNW and me and he converted it into an animated zombie portrait that plays on a digital picture frame. Beleive me when I say it's the coolest, daddio.

To see what he did and find out how you can get him to do it to you, go to his page and click on the cartoon drawing that most resembles the image here. You'll be glad you burned the .005 calories it took to click that link!

CHNW and Piraro as zombies...


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Black Kansas City Tuesday

Bizarro is brought to you today by Roll Models.

A couple of readers just emailed me today to tell me that The Kansas City Star canceled Bizarro. This cuts me deep, my friends. If it's true, that is. Sometimes a paper will move my cartoon or change it from a panel to a strip, or vice versa, and readers just assume it is missing.

But if you're within arm's reach of a KC Star, please have a gander and see if Bizarro is absent and if so, write, email, or call them and express your loss of a reason to live. If you're calling from a payphone, threaten to take hostages – just make sure you get off the phone before they can trace the call and don't actually take any hostages.

I was born in Kansas City and my parents were born and raised there, as were many of my other relatives who still reside within its city limits. How can they do this to a native son? Was it something I said? Was it the atheist dog cartoon from yesterday? Was it my family's Mafia connections back in the 1920s?

I don't mean to put too much emphasis on this personal tragedy, but I shall wear black and refuse to cut my hair until Bizarro is reinstated in my hometown newspaper. Or until I get tired of wearing black and I begin to look like a homeless guy, whichever comes first. I encourage all of you across the globe to do the same. If we show our solidarity, we can beat this thing. Or at least start a Cure tribute band.

Invasion Scenario

Bizarro is brought to you today by Hot Letters.

I drew this cartoon because I, myself, am a non-Henderson. 'Nuff said.

Here is a story about last night:
CHNW and I were spending a quiet evening in our upstairs living room watching television when suddenly, around midnight, I spotted movement in my periphery and turned my head to the darkened corner of the room where our spiral staircase ascends from the ground floor. There, rising like one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, was a large male figure.

Huge, pointy-clawed hands which I did not know resided within my chest grabbed my heart and squeezed hard, using their hairy elbows to push all of the air out of my lungs. For a solid 2 seconds, I was certain we were the victims of a home invasion and my mind raced to think what pointy or heavy object was within arm's length with which I could defend our lives and homestead. As he reached the top step and moved into the room, my razor-sharp brain suddenly recognized him and the claws let go of my heart as I was able to breath again.

For the past few days, CHNW and I have had a house guest, whom we will call Victor because that is his name. He is a youngster, college-age, and he was spending a few days in the city to see some Broadway shows and get lost in the city trying to navigate the subway system. Last night he went to see Avenue Q, a terribly funny show which I can recommend to anyone who enjoys funny things. (CHNW and I were watching HBO's True Blood, which I can recommend to anyone who likes blood.) Victor had been gone since around noon and I didn't hear him come in downstairs. Because my mind is more like a pocket calculator than a desktop computer, I had forgotten all about him.

In all my life I've never been so happy to see a male college student and he, CHNW and I had a good laugh. CHNW pointed out that the only weapon-worthy object in the room was my statue from the National Cartoonists Society. Victor came very close to being the first person in history to be murdered by a Reuben Award; a very dubious distinction, indeed.

And I would likely have been the first person to use the "I'm sorry, officer, I forgot he was staying with us" defense.

Crazy Erect Mullet

Bizarro is brought to you today by the Anti-Mullet.

Here are three cartoons from the past week. In the first, we see a fine, patriotic American in a mullet. Hard as it is to believe, there are still people out there who wear their hair this way. That's fine, don't get me wrong, it's everyone's prerogative to wear their hair any way they like and far be it from me to ridicule someone for looking unconventional. But still, the mullet is a hideous hairstyle and inherently funny. To me, that is.

The next offering comes from my vast experience with therapists. They always give an emergency number you can call when they are out of town. I don't actually use therapists for emergency-style problems so it amuses me when they tell me that. But I understand people who do. If you're seriously suicidal or something, you'd hate to be on the railing of a bridge and find out the one person you trust to talk you down is on a beach in Barbados and can't come to the phone. Myself, I go when I'm having trouble making a life decision like breaking up with someone or changing jobs or something, so I can't see myself calling a surrogate and pleading for help. "Should I do it in a restaurant, or in her apartment? What if she starts breaking things?"

Lastly, we have an erectile dysfunction gag, which is always funny, as long as you aren't the Viagra taker. I have no erectile difficulties, so this is still funny to me. Or maybe I'm just pretending it's funny to me so nobody will know I have an erectile problem. Most of you will never know.

Dead Like Me

Bizarro is brought to you today by a Man With A Big Heart.

This gag was given to me by my good friend and fellow cartoonist, Michael Capozzola, author of Surveillance Caricatures in the San Francisco Chronicle, stand-up comedian, actor, play-on-words expert.

The older I get the less I like going to doctors. I've never enjoyed it, lord knows, but lately I've begun thinking what is really the point at all?

I've never been one to run to the doc for a cold or flu, they can't do anything for you anyway, it's just a needless expense. I have found over the years that if I fight my way through the occasional sickness with ibuprofen and good nutrition, I get sick much less often than my friends who are hooked on antibiotics. The fact that I eat a healthy vegan diet (as opposed to an unhealthy vegan diet full of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup and fried foods) and exercise moderately leaves me much less vulnerable to most "big" diseases, but even if I come down with one, chances are I won't be able to pay for the treatment.

I don't have health insurance because the insurance industry's number one job is to find a way not to pay back the tens of thousands that you've paid them over the years. It is quite literally their business model. I used to have it but came to see it as a false sense of security: even if you get sick or injured, chances are they will find a way to disqualify you. Then you're sick and frustrated with the unmistakable feeling that you've been screwed. Since I'm self employed there is no one to pay for part of mine, so it's like another mortgage payment each month to carry even bare-bones catastrophic.

So I've gotten used to the idea that as long as I live in the U.S. if I get really sick, I'll just die. I won't care after I'm dead, any more than I care what I'm missing when I'm asleep. Quality of life is more important to me than quantity, so I do what I can to keep myself healthy and if I get unlucky anyway, so be it. I'd rather die at home (or at my own hands if it gets too painful) than in a hospital hooked to machinery and leaving my family bankrupt or with a huge insurance company battle on their hands.

I know this isn't conventional and doesn't make sense to most people, but it's my choice. To hell with doctors, insurance companies and our corrupt health care system; I'm tired of buying yachts for others. We've known it sucks for a long time and we refuse to fix it.

For now, my motto: Eat right, exercise, die like a human. Of course, my tune might change if I get diagnosed with something wicked. It's easy to talk this way when you're still healthy.

Offspring

Bizarro is brought to you today by How To Use Your Nose To Impress The Ladies.
Here's a fun story. The color cartoon shown here is what appeared in my client newspapers but it is not the way I originally wrote or drew it. The black and white cartoon below was my first attempt.

My editors at the syndicate didn't understand the original cartoon (I don't blame them) and thought that it might be seen as racist, and they were undoubtedly right. As those of you who have read my blog regularly know, people will complain about racism if given even a sliver of an opportunity. Complaints to newspapers are bad for business, so I changed the gag to a ventriloquist theme, which is a better cartoon anyway.

The original gag was supposed to be that a couple of white ladies see a middle-aged black lady walking a blond baby in a stroller and think she has adopted him. Their comment is meant to imply that they see this sort of thing all the time. What they are actually seeing are nannies, of course. I don't know about other parts of the country, but here in NYC one regularly sees middle-aged women-of-color walking white kids. Evidently, lots of rich white folks don't raise their own kids and who can blame them? Making babies is so much more fun than making sure they don't grow up to be scourges on society.*

*This statement is sarcasm.

Old Baggage

Bizarro is brought to you today by Well Grammar.

This cartoon are a take on a cartoon cliche, the one of the woman with her packed bags is leaving the house and says something funny to her husband about it. Their are lots of cartoons like that. I was thinking about cartoons to write and decided to make it the same kind of picture with a different funny line for the punchline. Instead of really leaving the husband of her, she is really only taking old suitcases out to their trash and the reader is suprised.

This caption I have changed before putting it here on the blogs because I had the word "bring" instead of the word "take." A reader wrote me an email and said that bring is for when you are coming toward and take is for when they are going away. Since the wife is going away from where she now is, I had the wrong word---bring--- and changed it now to be correct---take. I always forget that rule about bring and take I was raised in Oklahoma and most people there use those words as the same meaning. Old habits dye hard I guess.

PUZZLER ANSWERS!

(To view this comic larger, click on it!)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Puzzling Things.

For those of you who did not arrive here because of the URL in today's Sunday Bizarro, the image above is what appeared in papers worldwide today. As you can see from the extremely neat, vertical graffiti on the wall to the mouse's right, the "answers" to the puzzle are to be posted on this blog. Take this opportunity to solve it yourself if you are exceedingly clever, or, click this link for the answers!

These puzzles were a collaboration between myself and my good friend, Cliff. He has an upcoming book for kids of a certain age (I can't remember the age) that is a novel which incorporates these kinds of puzzles. He's a puzzling fellow. I'll let you know when it is in stores so you can buy many many copies and Cliff can quit his job as a salesmen of undergarments for pets.

If you're new to this blog, stop by every day and click the "like" button at the bottom. It makes me feel liked. And when I feel liked, my cartoons are funnier. It's a win/win.

For an adult thrill, click the next link to see the caption I wanted to add to this cartoon but did not because it would have caused too many brain aneurysms across America. Adult Caption!!

Yes, I know that wasn't that big of a deal, but lots of people go nuts over that sort of thing for fear they may have to explain to their kids what a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ is and then they might become one.

Onward and upward, thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again soon.

Penguin Camouflage

Bizarro is brought to you today by Casual Chic.

A lot of people liked this pirate cartoon and I do too. Penguins are inherently funny and sitting on the shoulder of a bad ass makes them even funnier. Just my opinion, no angry comments, please.

The Sunday cartoon below if from July 4th weekend. It isn't really meant to be particularly patriotic or anything, I just happened to think of it when I needed a cartoon to run on July 4th. Here in NYC, we have camouflaged soldiers walking through subway stations and airports keeping an eye out for terrorists or whatever. It often occurs to me that in urban settings such as this, traditional camouflage performs the opposite function from what it was intended. They might as well be wearing garish clown suits or foam rubber mascot costumes.

Of course, they're not really trying to disappear in those situations so the whole argument makes no sense. I just wanted an excuse to mention foam rubber mascot costumes. Gosh, those things are great.

Sunday Puzzler NOT

If you're in one of those markets that publishes my Sunday comic on Saturday, you may be here looking for the answer to this puzzler. I'll be posting it tomorrow, Sunday, July 11, so come on back. Or, have a seat and make yourself comfortable. There are sodas in the fridge, one per customer, please.

The Flood

Bizarro is brought to you today by Human Ingenuity.

Every thinking person has considered at one time or another how the world will end. By "the world" we always mean humanity, of course, as if the entire existence of the planet were about us. It is a common religious tenet that the world was created for humans but this self-centered idea is one that I believe to be born of ignorance and superstition.

I was indoctrinated with this concept, too, and believed it for most of my life; it's difficult to let go of things ingrained in us when we are very young. But acquainting myself with the body of knowledge about the earth and the universe that humans have gathered with our nimble brains over the past several thousand years, it became increasingly obvious that nothing could be further from the truth. We are but passengers on a ship along with millions of other species of plants and animals, all of which balance rather delicately upon each other.

There is also human arrogance in the idea that we will end it all with some amazing invention like the atomic bomb – killed by our own awesomely ingenious amazingness. Oh, the tragic drama of it all. In fact, it looks as though the end of us will be at the hands of a leaky pipe.

As T. S. Eliot said, "Not with a bang but a whimper."

Saints & Thinkers

Bizarro is brought to you by Zen Dudes.

This first cartoon is fun for me because it has that circuitous philosophical reasoning that I enjoy. Since thinking is what humans do best we have spent a lot of time thinking about things that don't have a lot of practical value. Like the famous question of whether any noise is made if a tree falls in the forest and there are no ears to hear it. Or, my favorite rewrite of that same query: If a man says something in a forest and there is no woman to correct him, is he still wrong?

Since I've posted less frequently in recent days, here are a couple more cartoons for your amusement.

Here I have written a cartoon from my own experience, more or less. CHNW and I are selling our place in Brooklyn in the fall and I'm worried about it. One thing I'm worried about is that there is a huge, noisy, filthy construction project across the street that makes most days here fairly miserable. Our real estate agent recommended we not put the place up for sale until the building is finished, which is scheduled to be later this summer. God, I hope so. The guy who owns that property and the one next door (which is now a four-story apartment building) both of which were vacant lots when we bought our place six years ago, has been building things for the past five years, non stop. (If that last sentence is confusing, it is because they've been jackhammering the street outside my window for the past two days.) Is there any legal precedent for compensation for noise and filth of this sort?

Our third cartoon today is just a bit of oddball fun for no particular reason. I named the character Cliff after a good friend. Though he looks nothing like this and does not to my knowledge stand directly in front of the sun, he does have a habit of appearing saintly. He's just a nice guy, though.

More About Smoking

I wrote about smoking laws a few days back and got a lot of comments, mostly angry ones. I answered many of these comments with my own comments but people typically don't read those and I keep getting the same accusations and derisions, so I thought I'd post my updated thoughts about smoking laws here.

1. Yes, I agree that second-hand smoke can be a health hazard. My argument is that occasionally passing a person on the street who is smoking will not give you cancer. (Note to asthma sufferers: I'm not talking about asthma here.)

2. I do NOT believe that ALL restaurants and bars should allow smoking. I hated those days, too. I'm saying that ALL restaurants and bars should not be REQUIRED to ban it. Most people do not like smoke and would choose smoke-free establishments so there would be plenty of them to choose from. Simple supply and demand. A small percentage would allow smoking, thus giving waitpersons and bartenders plenty of options for working in a smoke-free environment or one that allows smoking. (Note to anyone feeling indignation at this moment: I am NOT saying that you or your loved ones will have to work in a smoke-filled room. This is purely conjecture on my part. Just my opinion; life isn't perfect, neither am I.)

3. I do NOT deny that smoking is a health hazard. My point is only that it is a long-term hazard for some people, not a death sentence for anyone who smells it wafting by on a windy day.

4. Yes, smoke smells bad to non-smokers. That's reason enough to ban it in public buildings. You're right. I agree. We smokers are despicable.

I hope this decree is taken in the spirit of reconciliation in which it is intended. Yes, I smoke cigars, but I won't do it in your home, church or place of business unless you invite me to.

Thanks for reading and please don't hate me. Now check out the next post, which features a cartoon.

Weird and Wonderful

(Click on the cartoon for a larger, prettier version)

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Cast of "Wicked".

Every now and then a cartoon pops into my head and I instantly know it's good. I usually smile and jot it down quickly then take the rest of the day off drinking champagne on my yacht off the coast of Monaco. This was such a cartoon. The theme and caption are so ripe, so low-hanging that I still can't believe something like this one hasn't been done before. It probably has.

Someone wrote to me and asked if I was referring to a specific politician or circumstance, but of course I was not. This cartoon says a lot about most of the people who get into politics, especially at the upper levels. Not all, mind you, but the overwhelming majority (in my opinion). If you have a favorite politician that you really believe in, just tell yourself I'm not referring to him or her.

On another topic, yesterday I was driving through Manhattan and saw a woman crossing the street about a half block ahead. She was about 5' 3", thin, and was wearing a lime green, tight-fitting, sleeveless, short-shorts-jumpsuit sort of thing. Kind of like a one-piece swimsuit. She had a bright yellow, wide belt and was carrying a bright pink purse which matched her high heel shoes. The sides of her head were shaved bald with a patch of hair on top like a beret, which had been died the same bright yellow as her belt. She also had quite a few earrings. At first I thought, "There's an unusual looking young woman," but when I passed her I saw that she was likely in her 70s. (A glimpse of CHNW's future?)

I love that about New York. If I hadn't been riding my motorcycle, I would have whipped out my phone and grabbed a picture.

Have a dandy holiday weekend, American readers.

Bizarro iPhone App!!

Four quick facts about the Bizarro iPhone app:

1. Live content each day. What common peasants see in the newspaper today, super-high-tech coolios like you will see on your phone.

2. A year's worth of searchable archive at any given moment.

3. Only $1.99 per year. (That's all?! Are you freakin' kidding me?!) No, I am not.

4. Has magical ability to improve your sex life. *

5. The homepage is really long. Click on that picture I put here and measure it. Long.

Spread the word, spread the love, keep your poison ivy to yourself.
Your pal,
Dan Piraro

*depends on individual level of faith

Humor Formula

Bizarro is brought to you today by Invaders.

If there is one thing I've learned in my bazillion years as a syndicated cartoonist it is that there are lots of people who don't get any given cartoon. Especially if it has a history reference in it.

For those folks, the British Invasion is the name given to the many British rock bands in the late sixties that were so very popular in the United States. The term was a play on words in reference to the British invasion of the colonies during the American Revolutionary War. The War of 1812 would be another famous example of the British invading something.

Today's cartoon formula: Old guy still dressing like a mod from the sixties attempts to hit on young woman by making an outdated reference and she shoots him down with history. Who said that stuff we learned in school wouldn't come in handy some day?